TORONTO • Edward Snowden, the American cyber espionage whistleblower who has found political asylum in Russia, delivered an inspirational address via webcam to a top Toronto private school Monday night.

Mr. Snowden’s address to a world affairs conference at Upper Canada College, just days after his revelations about a massive Canadian online surveillance program known as Levitation, showed him to be as grandiose of vision as Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, but more modest and cautious in his tone, downplaying his dramatic personal story in favour of high-minded rhetoric about changing the world.

“I don’t want to call the shots about what people should or should not know because I have a political bias,” Mr. Snowden said. “So I entrusted this to journalists.”

He denounced the “over-fascination with myself” that has gripped the media ever since 2013 when he bolted from Hawaii for secret meetings with journalists in Hong Kong, and from there to Russia, where he lives today. He said the narratives of hero or traitor that dominate discussion of him are distractions from the meaning of his revelations.

“Whether or not I’m Adolf Hitler or Mother Teresa, that has no bearing whatsoever on the content of the reporting,” he said.

More than once, he made the distinction between legality and morality, and said his filtering of his leaks through established media absolved him from the blame that so many are so eager to throw at him.

“When we combine these steps [of leaking to media] in aggregate there is a very strong case to be made that the public interest was maximized and the public risk was minimized,” he said. “Very little harm has been done.”

That is a lot to hang on a reporter, but it was a mantle eagerly accepted by Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who has broken many Snowden stories, and who also addressed the conference via webcam.

He described the Canadian political climate of “fear-mongering” used to justify over-reaches in cyber security, most notably last week’s news about a federal bill to expand domestic security responses.

Both Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Snowden used bathtub falls and lightning strikes as examples of ways to die that are more likely than terrorism, although Mr. Greenwald’s point was undermined by his placing of St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, site of a recent lone wolf terror attack, in “northern Quebec,” when it is in fact south of Montreal.

Matthew Sherwood for National PostEdward Snowden speaks live from Russia, via webam.

“The chances of you dying in a terrorist attack are infinitesimal,” said Mr. Greenwald. “And yet your government continually hypes the threat.”

“We’re losing our way as a society,” said Mr. Snowden, from exile in Russia. “If we don’t stand up, if we don’t say what we think those rights should be, and if we don’t protect them, we will very soon find out that we do not have them.”

He spoke of the recent “departure from the traditional models of intelligence gathering,” which used to involve the use of “extraordinary powers only in extraordinary circumstances.”

Now, he recalled how his former boss at the National Security Agency, Michael Hayden, once said: “We use metadata to kill people.”

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham HughesGlenn Greenwald, the journalist who has broken many Snowden stories, and who also addressed the conference via webcam.

Conor Healy, 18, the UCC student who organized the appearance, said Mr. Snowden is “more respectable” than Julian Assange, that the men are “two very different animals,” with the “total modesty” of Mr. Snowden contrasting with the grandiosity of the similarly exiled Mr. Assange.

He said he had no idea the appearance, arranged via the American Civil Liberties Union, would coincide so neatly with such a politically significant revelation from Mr. Snowden as the Levitation story.

“We certainly had no knowledge that such a coincidence would occur,” Mr. Healy said.

Mr. Snowden, whom Mr. Healy introduced as “the most wanted man in the world,” said the names of many government online surveillance programs take their names from American Civil War battles, such as Bullrun, which he said reflects the fact they target not just people on the outside, but on the inside too.

“Inside, we’re looking at everyone in a new way,” Mr. Snowden said.

Matthew Sherwood for National PostConor Healy, 18, the UCC student who organized the appearance, said Mr. Snowden is "more respectable" than Julian Assange.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/edward-snowden-the-american-cyber-whistleblower-talks-legality-and-morality-during-speech-to-toronto-private-school/feed4stdSnowden05.JPGMatthew Sherwood for National PostTHE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham HughesMatthew Sherwood for National PostBenjamin Shinewald: Ottawa never took security seriously. Until nowhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/benjamin-shinewald-ottawa-never-took-security-seriously-until-now
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/benjamin-shinewald-ottawa-never-took-security-seriously-until-now#commentsWed, 22 Oct 2014 19:13:24 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=166442

We know only one sure thing from Wednesday’s shooting in Parliament: Security in Ottawa is wanting.

But this is no news flash. Canadians simply do not take security seriously. It’s not on our radar.

We continue to labour under the misbelief that “it can’t happen here” and that we’re just not “that kind of place.” We seem to lack the mindset to turn our heads to the violent threats directed at our leaders and ourselves.

But whether or not Wednesday’s attack was motivated by terrorism or any other identifiable motive, it’s time to wake up. A murderous assault happened here – in the heart of our Parliament – and it will happen again if we don’t smarten up.

Only 30 years ago, it was possible to drive your car right up to the Peace Tower. Those days are gone, thank goodness.

But it’s about as easy to penetrate Parliament and our other national institutions as it is to get into a movie without a ticket.

When I worked in Ottawa just six years ago, I attended Cabinet committee meetings about once a week. Each time I went, I was stunned at how lax security was.

On one occasion, I walked all the way into the Cabinet Room — filled with 20 or so Ministers — without a single security check of any kind. I could have had a gun, or worse, but no one even checked my ID.

In the nice weather, I used to ride my bike to the office and park it right in the compact centre of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office. There wasn’t even a gate at the entrance, though there is one now, thankfully. Anyone could have walked, ridden or driven in, and been up to no good.

There was a bicycle security protocol, though. I had to get a small metal disc, about the size of a quarter, and hang it off the bottom of my bike seat with a plastic tie. The disc still hangs on my bike today, six years after I left the public service and five years after I moved to Toronto.

Related

When I raised concerns, no one seemed to share them. It can’t happen here. It’s just not our culture.

Since leaving the Public Service, I have gone to public and private events with leading politicians, including the Prime Minister, and the same concerns repeat.

And so, I began avoiding the issue. If asked, the furthest I would go would be to reply to a question about security along the lines of “It’s poor, but I don’t discuss security concerns.” I was worried that by discussing the weaknesses, someone would exploit them.

After Wednesday, though, enough is enough. One person is dead. Another is wounded. Our Parliamentarians and public servants – my old colleagues and friends – could have been at far greater risk. It’s time for a national conversation about how we should secure our leaders, our institutions and ourselves. It’s time to take security seriously.

Taking security seriously doesn’t just require spending money to, say, build a fence around Parliament Hill tall enough to keep people from hopping over it. It’s about sensitizing ourselves to the threats we face and shaping our culture in a manner that recognizes them.

This does not mean that we should adopt a militarized culture. Far from it. But it does mean that we have to begin to put security concerns on the front burner.
Until Wednesday, we really did not see the risks we face, be they terrorist, criminal or otherwise. But they saw us. They continue to see our weaknesses and will continue to exploit them.

Canadians spend millions each year on safety and security. Our tax dollars fund the activities of CSIS, the RCMP, the military and more. We even created an entire federal government department dedicated just to Public Safety.

And yet you can already hear the cries — to keep Parliament “open,” to avoid “American-style” security.

Such excessive laxity would be disastrous. It already has led to innocent blood being spilled this week in the middle of our nation’s capital.

It is time for our country to take national security seriously. Enough is enough.

National Post

Benjamin Shinewald served in the Privy Council Office from 2005 to 2008.

Funding to bomb-proof windows, develop an antidote for nerve agents, and train police to deal with homemade explosives was announced on Wednesday, as the government said it wanted to prepare Canada for security threats.

Together with grants for research on countering extremist violence, managing “high profile security events” and treating victims of a “radiological-nuclear event,” the announcement hinted at a bleak vision for the Canada of tomorrow.

“I think it is prudent investment, but there’s no doubt it paints a dark picture of the future,” said Jez Littlewood, an assistant professor at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

The projects were among 20 that received $14.5-million from the Canadian Safety and Security Program, which brings together government, industry and academic experts to “develop knowledge and tools, and provide advice” on safeguarding Canada.

“These investments will help ensure Canada is resilient to public safety and security threats,” said Rob Nicholson, the Minister of National Defence, who unveiled the funding jointly with Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney.

The announcement came two days after Mr. Blaney released the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s annual report, which said Al-Qaeda was still capable of staging “spectacular” terrorist attacks against the West.

It also warned that Al-Qaeda had supporters in Canada, and that an increasing number of Canadians were going abroad to join terror groups, leading to concerns they could return to wage extremist violence and radicalize others.

Together with the CSIS report, Wednesday’s funding statement offered a snapshot of Ottawa’s intelligence priorities and its view of the security challenges and threats Canada faces in the future, Mr. Littlewood said.

Other projects receiving funding include those dealing with dismantling drug labs, border surveillance in the Great Lakes, establishing a public alerting service, using face recognition technology to screen travelers, and investigating cyber threats.

Mr. Littlewood, who is director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies, said even if disasters such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attacks by terrorists were “low probability” events, they had such potentially high consequences that it made sense to be ready.

“It provides a better understanding of risks, can enhance preparations to detect, prevent, or respond to such an incident, and that investment usually is substantially lower than any response/consequence management or after event responses,” he said.

The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said in his 2014 worldwide threat assessment Wednesday that Syria had become a breeding ground where groups aligned with Al-Qaeda were recruiting, training and equipping extremists, some of whom might conduct attacks outside Syria.

OTTAWA — Online spying and other cyber threats have pushed the government to invoke a national security exemption on trade obligations, effectively banning foreign IT companies from working on a new federal telephone system in Ottawa.

It’s the first in a series of planned contracting restrictions intended to erect a “cyber perimeter” around the multibillion-dollar overhaul of the government’s vast and aging email, telecommunications, networking and data centre infrastructure.

“These systems have been the target of hostile threats which causes grave concerns about the implications of cyber threats on Canada’s national security,” warns a Public Works letter recently circulated to the IT industry.

A “national security exception” is typically invoked for military procurements and overrides trading obligations under the North American Free Trade Act, the World Trade Organization and the federal-provincial Agreement on Internal Trade.

Now, it’s being enlisted for what might escalate into a cyber Cold War, most notably with China.

The range of available restrictions under the exception include limiting competition to Canadian companies, a preference for Canadian goods and services, withholding highly sensitive information about how some systems operate, contracting only to pre-selected firms and requiring winning bidders to hold SECRET-grade security clearances.

“The government of Canada’s email, data centre and telecommunication systems are inextricably linked to one another; they are the key tools used in the creation, transmission/communication and storage of the government’s information, and must be appropriately protected in order to create a secure ‘cyber perimeter,’” Public Works said in a written statement Friday.

In some cases, that perimeter could extend to contracts for janitorial services, landscapers, security guards and even snow plowing.

Foreign threats aren’t the only worry.

“The government is also concerned about potential compromises to security achieved through the supply chain itself,” it says.

Chris Wattie/ReutersPublic Safety Minister Vic Toews was warned in a 2011 memo that cyber attacks pose a greater risk to Canada’s prosperity than the government previously believed.

The reference is to the potential for corrupt technology suppliers, “Manchurian microchips” and other Trojan hardware and gear to be unwittingly installed in the federal systems, with backdoors allowing their creators full access to the system.

For example, in addition to limiting bidding to Canadian companies, the notice of proposed procurement for a new government telephone system in Ottawa states preference will be given to bidders using made-in-Canada gear. The only alternative allowed will be for equipment manufactured in the United States or Mexico. The notice, which appears to be the first of the restricted IT contracts, was published last week.

The bidding controls were requested by Shared Services Canada, the new federal department responsible for consolidating and securing the government’s 100 email systems, 300 data centres and 3,000 network services.

Many experts, including Western intelligence agencies, have long fingered the Chinese government for supporting a web of sophisticated, global cyber espionage and online spying operations to infiltrate the computers of other governments and their advanced industries. China denies the accusations.

China also manufacturers many of the components that go into top computer brands and other electronics.

In March, the Australian government banned China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., the world’s second-largest telecommunications provider, from bidding on a contract to establish a new national broadband network, a move the Chinese Ministry of Commerce slammed as “unjust.”

It’s not clear whether IT firms with connections to China will be shut out of the future Canadian federal bidding.

Shared Service Canada last week also unveiled its plans to consolidate the government’s tangle of email systems. Its hope is to award a contract by next March, with a consolidated system operational by March 2015.

In a request for information published Friday, the government set out several preliminary security requirements for the job, including that all engineering and technical personnel who maintain the completed system be Canadian.

Another key requirement — “data sovereignty” — states all email servers and data repositories must be housed in Canada and that all internal government-to-government emails, including ones from abroad, must travel through secured networks and not be saved or stored at any stage between their starting and end points.

Treasury Board estimates for 2012-13 show Shared Service Canada, established last summer, is expected to spend about $1.5-billion in its first full fiscal year. Public Works will handle the tendering.

The national security restrictions follow the release this month of a 2011 internal government memo warning Public Safety Minister Vic Toews that cyber attacks pose a greater risk to Canada’s economic prosperity than the government previously believed, and the country lacks the tools to fight hackers.

The federal government unveiled a “cyber-security strategy” in 2010, but some experts say Canada remains a juicy target, with highly vulnerable computer systems holding a wealth of trade, economic and policy secrets in government and industry databanks.

Last fall, the Ottawa Citizen revealed that an unprecedented January 2011 cyber attack on Treasury Board and Finance computers was targeting highly sensitive information on Saskatchewan’s potash industry.

Three months before the attacks, the federal government rejected a proposed takeover of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton, which proposed to acquire Potash for US$38.6-billion. The government deemed the offer not to be in Canada’s best interest.

Around the same time, Chinese multinational conglomerate Sinochem was considering partnering with Russian interests in a bid for Potash Corp., the world’s largest fertilizer producer.

WASHINGTON – A French woman forced a U.S.-bound transatlantic flight to be diverted after claiming she was carrying a “surgically implanted device,” US officials said.

The US Airways plane, flying from Paris, was diverted to Maine on Tuesday where the woman was taken into custody by the FBI before the Boeing 767 continued its journey to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Coming on the heels of a thwarted airline bomb plot by Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch, the incident has laid bare US worry over shifting tactics of extremists as they seek new ways — and new technologies, including non-metallic bombs — for landing a deadly blow against an American target.

Last year, US officials warned airlines that terror groups were studying how to surgically hide bombs inside humans to evade airport security — precisely the threat that emerged when the US Airways passenger made herself known to the cabin crew.

Related

Senator Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, highlighted the concerns shortly after news broke of Flight 787’s diversion to Maine, saying there has been “intelligence identifying surgically implanted bombs as a threat to air travel.”

Collins, briefed on the incident by Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole, said TSA recently issued security directives to airports, airlines, and foreign governments, “advising them to take added screening precautions and to be on the lookout for indicators of surgically implanted explosives.”

The US Airways flight took off without incident from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport bound for Charlotte with 179 passengers and crew.

At some point during the flight, a passenger “handed a note to a flight attendant that said she had a surgically implanted device inside her,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King said in a statement.

‘I had briefly noticed her in the back of the plane being a weirdo… (She) seemed on edge, but no more so than anybody who is nervous about flying’

The Cameroon-born woman was traveling alone with no checked baggage and visiting the United States for 10 days, according to King.

Alarmed crew on board isolated the passenger, and “doctors on the flight checked her out and did not see any sign of recent scars,” King added.

A police source in Paris said that the woman was unknown to French intelligence.

“This woman is completely unknown to French police and intelligence in particular,” the source told AFP, requesting anonymity. “She appears to be psychologically disturbed.”

Andrew Kobayashi, a passenger on the flight, told CNN that the woman, who appeared to be in her mid-20s to mid-30s, was sweating and acting nervous.

“I had briefly noticed her in the back of the plane being a weirdo… (She) seemed on edge, but no more so than anybody who is nervous about flying,” said Kobayashi, who was seated several rows forward of the woman.

Concerned pilots radioed in to North American Aerospace Defense Command, and two F-15 fighter jets based in Massachusetts were scrambled to escort the airliner through its tension-filled descent to Bangor, Maine.

An FBI joint terrorism task force, accompanied by a bomb squad, local police and other security agencies then met the aircraft upon arrival.

“FBI agents and members of a joint terrorism task force interviewed the passenger and others on the plane,” FBI spokesman Greg Comcowich said.

“At this time, there is no indication the plane or its passengers were ever in any actual danger.”

A US official told AFP that the suspect was unlikely to be part of a broader international terror plot linked to groups such as Al-Qaeda.

“It doesn’t appear to be any terrorist nexus at this point,” said the official.

But it served as a blunt reminder of the ongoing efforts by groups like Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to eventually break through tight US security with a functional bomb.

And it came after news emerged earlier this month of a foiled plot to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner.

U.S. officials said the plot involved a non-metallic device, intended for use by a suicide bomber on an airliner, that was an updated version of the “underwear bomb” used in a failed attack on a U.S.-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009.

Though officials touted the disrupted plot as a success, they acknowledged AQAP remained determined to strike and its master bombmaker, Ibrahim Al-Asiri, was apparently hard at work seeking to circumvent airport security.

Washington says Asiri is the prime suspect behind an attempt by the lethal Al-Qaeda offshoot to send parcel bombs from Yemen to the United States in October 2010.

The packages, addressed to synagogues in Chicago and containing the hard-to-detect explosive PETN hidden in printer ink cartridges, were discovered en route in Britain and Dubai.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/human-bomb-threat-forces-u-s-bound-flight-to-divert-woman-taken-into-custody/feed7stdA U.S. Airways flight from Paris to Charlotte, North Carolina that was diverted to Bangor International Airport after reports of a passenger showing "suspicious behavior" takes off after landing safely earlier in the day in Bangor, Maine May 22, 2012.White House vigilant for attacks ahead of Osama bin Laden anniversaryhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/white-house-vigilant-for-attacks-ahead-of-osama-bin-laden-anniversary
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/white-house-vigilant-for-attacks-ahead-of-osama-bin-laden-anniversary#commentsThu, 26 Apr 2012 18:29:14 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=166416

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has ordered a review of potential threats facing the United States ahead of the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, the White House said on Thursday, but stressed that there was no concrete evidence of an attack being planned.

“At this time, we have no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, are plotting attacks in the United States to coincide with the anniversary of bin Laden’s death,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

Related

U.S. commandos killed bin Laden last year in a raid on his compound in Pakistan that took place before dawn May 2 local time, which was May 1 in the United States.

“However, we assess that AQ’s affiliates and allies remain intent on conducting attacks in the homeland, possibly to avenge the death of bin Laden, but not necessarily tied to the anniversary,” Carney told reporters at the White House.

The killing of the man behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks sent hundreds of Americans onto U.S. streets in celebration, but it fanned anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, which was severely embarrassed by the raid on the compound just a few hours drive from Islamabad.

“The president thanked his team and directed them to take all necessary measures to protect the American people,” Carney said.

Maude Barlow, call your office“The devil is in the details” when it comes to the new Canada-U.S. border agreement, and as Postmedia’s Stephen Maher says, those details “don’t yet exist” and are therefore impossible to judge. But on the face of it, he believes there is tremendous upside in the proposed measures, little for reasonable people to dislike, and no reason that anyone’s privacy need be violated to make fortress North America a smoother-running operation. But then, of course, the privacy protections haven’t been written yet.

The National Post‘s John Ivison can’t see much to get upset about either: more efficient cross-border travel by individuals, no more double-screening of cargo that arrives in Canada and transits to the United States, potentially billions in savings and increased trade with what’s left of the U.S. economy. And he suspects even the NDP won’t complain too vociferously, as it wouldn’t “want to beggar the economy before it gets an opportunity to spend us back into Grecian-level deficits.” Zing!

TheGlobe and Mail‘s editorialists are particularly enthusiastic about the gathering of entry-and-exit data by the two countries, not least because it will finally help Canada get a sense of how many would-be citizens and failed refugee claimants are leaving the country. That’s fine, but this seems an odd justification for a giant agreement with Washington. We could do that for our own good, and probably should have done it ages ago.

And now, the skeptics.

Canada has “sold its national security independence in exchange for hoped-for minor changes to American border restrictions,” Gar Pardy argues in the Ottawa Citizen, suggesting Washington “blackmailed” Ottawa on the file and that no document will stop Washington from pursuing unilateral action if and when its security paranoia flares up again. On the last part, we tend to agree. On the first part, we’re not wild about providing the Americans with reams of personal information they don’t already have either. (The Privacy Commissioner will have her say, at least, which is comforting.) But we can’t help noticing that the most egregious examples of the sorts of abuse such information-sharing might conceivably lead to … have already happened.

Indeed, the Toronto Star‘s Thomas Walkom sees the agreement as simply the culmination of a longstanding policy of knuckling under to the Americans’ every demand. “It was a Liberal government that ordered its security services to pass on every unsubstantiated rumour to the U.S.,” he notes, “a practice that resulted in the arrest, jailing and torture of Canadian citizen Maher Arar.” Basically, in Walkom’s view, “America gets more say in how Canada handles its affairs.” And “Canada gets — well, Canada gets not much.”

Freedom, what is it good for?Our colleague here at the Post, Joe O’Connor, informs us that skiing without a helmet, which we’ve done safely for 22 years, including two 100-plus-day seasons in British Columbia, is “similar to drunk driving”: We are a risk not only to ourselves but to “the innocents on the ski slopes, the ones wearing helmets, and the ones that the yahoo without a helmet invariably crashes into.” This makes us … angry. Very angry, in fact. We don’t know what we could possibly say about it that wouldn’t involve profanity. So we’ll just point out how ridiculously flimsy the justification for Nova Scotia’s new ski helmet law is, and move on.

Good lord. Speaking of bad legislation, the Edmonton Journal‘s Graham Thomson reports that Alberta New Democrat Rachel Notley voted in favour of the Progressive Conservative government’s controversial anti-drunk driving law — which even some government MLAs oppose — because, quote, “we don’t want to be responsible for answering to people who are the relatives or friends or family of those two or three people in Alberta that the statistics show us die every year as a result of alcohol impairment below the .08 level.” Hey, points for honesty. But voting to infringe upon people’s freedoms because you don’t want to deal with the relatives of people who exercised their freedom is not our idea of responsible lawmaking. You can ban almost anything under that logic.

Duly notedThe Sun Media editorialists agree with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson that there’s no need for a law against honour killings, because first-degree murder handles the crime in question quite nicely and “we cannot allow one life to have more value than another.” But, they say, Nicholson “is definitely on message when he said his government would consider amending hate crime legislation to protect women and girls from becoming targets because of what they wear or who they date.” Huh? Targets for what? Why doesn’t the same principle — murder is murder, child abuse is child abuse, all victims are equal — apply in these cases?

On Friday, Oct. 7, U.S. Republican leadership candidate Mitt Romney visited the Citadel, a famed American military college in South Carolina. There, he gave an address on American foreign policy, including what it would look like under President Romney. A lot of it was fluff — America would lead, America would value allies, America would stand for freedom, America would conduct an oh-so thorough review of the war in Afghanistan. But there were also some concrete proposals: National ballistic missile defence would be re-prioritized. A comprehensive cyber-attack defence system would be implemented. Production of naval warships would be ramped up by two-thirds. Two carrier battlegroups would be forward deployed to deter Iranian aggression.

There’s a lot to like in the speech. Romney clearly understands the importance of national defence and doesn’t hesitate to criticize foreign regimes and even the United Nations for their failings. It’s refreshing. But the part of the speech that got the most media attention was when Romney articulated his view of America’s place in the world, as apparently sanctioned by Almighty God. To put it bluntly: “American global dominance.”

That’s certainly what the weekend headlines said: “Romney declares God favours U.S. dominance” was a typical offering. What Romney actually said was a bit more nuanced, but just a bit:

God did not create this country to be a nation of followers. America is not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers. America must lead the world, or someone else will. Without American leadership, without clarity of American purpose and resolve, the world becomes a far more dangerous place, and liberty and prosperity would surely be among the first casualties.

There’s nothing objectionable about what he said. God is commonly referenced in American politics — it’s just par for the course. And Romney is almost certainly correct — if America doesn’t lead the world, someone else will. And if you take a look at the runners-up, you can’t help but concur with Romney — liberty and prosperity might not fare quite so well under new management.

But what is curious about Romney’s pledge is that while God may well have created America to lead, it’s far from clear that Americans are interested in the job.

In May of this year, Pew Research conducted a major poll of American citizens. More than 3,000 were interviewed by phone, and about half of those re-interviewed later to track any emerging trends. Something that was starkly clear from the report — a majority of every identified segment of American society now wants the U.S. to be less involved in world affairs. That includes Republicans of the muscular strong-national-defence-variety, 55% of whom said America “should pay less attention to problems overseas.” Thirty-nine percent took the opposite view, that it’s “best to be active in world affairs.” Nationally, one-third of people said it was best to be involved. Fifty-eight percent wanted less attention paid to world affairs.

These numbers aren’t surprising, not should anyone necessarily expect those who support a vigorous national defence to be fond of foreign entanglements. It’s entirely possible for a strong U.S. military to focus more on homeland defence. The realities of modern military technology don’t permit true isolationism — missiles can fly pretty fast, pretty far these days — but defending America’s homeland, while retaining enough long-range firepower to stomp on anyone (with conventional weapons or otherwise) who attacks the country, is a viable, defensible military policy.

But it isn’t, as Romney would call it, leading the world. It’s telling the world that the U.S. will mess up anyone who takes a shot at Uncle Sam. There’s a difference.

One didn’t need the Pew data to know that America has been turning inward since the economic crisis began. Most Americans would agree that spending needs to come down, but few would want to see their own entitlements cut. Reducing military assistance to NATO, curtailing the F-22 fighter program, closing bases in Japan … those are easier cuts to sell, so long as the homeland can still be protected. Getting out of Iraq (nearly done) and Afghanistan (not even close) are also constantly under discussion, even if the American position is clearly conflicted on those shooting wars.

But no country can seek to lead the world while needing to borrow trillions from that same world to finance the effort. If America truly wants to lead the world without cutting military spending (or, indeed, increasing it, as Romney is proposing), it would require either tax hikes or a massive boom in the U.S. economy. Romney is counting on the latter, but seems to lack a plan. His speech contains but one reference to where he’d get the money to finance American global dominance: “As President, on Day One, I will focus on rebuilding America’s economy.” Oh. Well, that takes care of that, then.

Romans 8:31 asks, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” God may be for America, and Romney for God. But the two of them have their work cut out getting the rest of Americans to agree.

TORONTO — A “person of interest” in a national security investigation was questioned by police on Wednesday, hours after the RCMP took the unusual step of releasing photographs of him taken by a security camera.

Police declined to explain whether the case was terrorism-related, and why they believed it was sufficiently urgent to justify distributing his photo. Nor would they say whether any criminal charges were pending.

Three grainy photos of the man, taken from a security camera, were posted on the RCMP website. The footage was apparently taken at a Mississauga business called DocuServe, where customers can use computers and print and fax documents.

“He’s a person of interest in this matter,” said Sgt. Richard Rollings, the RCMP spokesman for Ontario. “We’ve received information from this person of interest and basically need to corroborate its validity and we’re reaching out to the public to seek their assistance in locating him.”

Nothing to see hereOntario staggers, dazed and uninterested, through another election campaign.

Wow. This is amazing. The Toronto Star‘s Martin Regg Cohn reports that Tim Hudak’s objections to time-of-use electricity rates (which he calls “mandatory smart meter tax machines,” in hopes of sounding as stupid as humanly possible) include the fact that senior citizens are forced to stay up and do their laundry after 7pm. This is officially the best laugh we’ve gotten from this dreary campaign thus far. Here’s an idea, if people are really concerned: Why don’t seniors do their laundry in the early morning? They’re all finished breakfast by 5:30 anyway.

TheGlobe and Mail‘s editorialists quite rightly call for an immediate end to the discussion of a Liberal campaign pledge to extend a tax credit to businesses that hire recent immigrants. “It’s poor policy,” they say, and at $12-million, it’s not going to make much of a difference either way. And the Progressive Conservatives are embarrassing themselves horribly with all this talk of “foreign workers” stealing Garnet W. Lunchpail’s job. None of this matters, as the Globe says (though, conveniently for the Liberals, it has introduced us to the PCs’ lesser angels). “Both parties ought to set the ‘foreigners’ aside and spend more time explaining how the signature pieces of their economic plan stand as solutions to [Ontario’s economic] insecurity and uncertainty.”

The National Post‘s John Ivison, meanwhile,has a long and interesting interview with Premier Dalton McGuinty, in which he pledges to “reintroduce” himself to Ontarians, and to serve the entire four-year term should he win again.

‘Round OttawaThe Ottawa Citizen‘s editorialists demand parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs Bob Dechert resign for his flirtatious e-mails with a Chinese state news reporter, given concerns over Chinese espionage in Canada. “It is common knowledge … that journalists at the Chinese Communist Party-run Xinhua News Agency often double as spies for the Chinese intelligence apparatus,” J. Michael Cole writes in the Citizen. And cultivating a relationship with someone like Dechert, says Cole, is exactly how they’d go about gaining advantage. Tasha Kheiriddin, writing in the Post, thinksDechert should only get the sack “if Canadian security was in fact compromised.” But as the Citizen says, “Dechert may have, indeed, been behaving innocently and naively. But that in itself is a dangerous attitude for a person in his position.” Precisely.

The NDP leadership race may well be over now that Ed Broadbent has endorsed Brian Topp, Stephen Maher argues in the Post. That’s how much clout he has in the party. And after all — he was right about endorsing Jack Layton back in 2003. The Star‘s Chantal Hébert agrees: Thomas Mulcair “has to all intents and purposes gone from unofficial pack leader to underdog in the early leadership sweepstakes,” she writes. There is, however, the small matter of Topp managing to get himself elected somewhere. And when it comes to “the kind of presence that lights up a political stage,” he’s certainly no Jack Layton. “Topp would offer Stephen Harper a more level playing field,” says Hébert.

Bon news, bad newsThe Montreal Gazette‘s Don Macpherson notes Quebec language fanatics’ astonishing talent for turning “good news” — such as a new report suggesting French isn’t as imperilled in Montreal as previous reports had suggested — into wholesale panic. The Post‘s Graeme Hamilton, meanwhile, notes that to the extent the francophone nature of Montreal is “threatened,” it’s being threatened by allophones, not anglophones. “Quebec is following precisely the course one would expect when an old-stock population stops having babies and immigrants are needed to compensate for the fertility decline,” says Hamilton. And yet, as always, it’s the anglophones taking it on the chin from the francophone hardliners.

The 9/11 ‘psychosis’Ten years after 9/11, Andrew Cohen, writing in the Citizen, argues Americans are just as distracted and decadent as they were in the mid-’90s, what with the Jersey Shore and the smart phones and the drunken college students. Fie!

We tend to agree: The vast majority of the population lives much as it did before 9/11. But it seems American officialdom, at least, has changed considerably. America suffers from an “entrapment psychosis,” Lawrence Martinargues in the Globe. “Since there’ll always be terrorists, since there’ll always be terror threats, this war … [is] eternal. The intimidation of a great nation continues ad infinitum.” This mentality has its victims — for example, three people dragged off a plane in Detroit, strip-searched and interrogated for no good reason. And the fact there aren’t many victims doesn’t make it less of a problem. Individual rights are what America’s supposed to be all about.

The National Post‘s Christie Blatchford catches up with some family members of 9/11 victims, and … we have nothing to say, really, except that it’s been a while since we came across anything quite so perfectly written. Blatchford alsotakes time out to gawk, lightheartedly and very appropriately, at how awesome New Yorkers are and how little b-s they tolerate.

TheGlobe and Mail‘s Doug Saunders sees “good reason to believe that international Islamic terrorism is a generational phenomenon, just like the wave of left-wing terrorism that swept across North America and Western Europe in the 1970s.” He cites Mohammed Abdel Rahman (son of the “blind sheikh”Omar Abdel Rahman ) and Egyptian “ex-jihadist” Usama Rushdy as examples of people whose ideas “remain alarming,” but who are at least “fighting for them in the bear pit of national politics, not in the isolated netherworld of bullets and box-cutters.”

Wesley Wark, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, also notes the deep and satisfying unpopularity of bin Laden-brand extremism, and argues it’s time for Canada to focus on hitherto neglected future security threats — chiefly “the impacts of climate change” (e.g., “failed states” that run out of “water and arable land,” and “mass migrations” therefrom); “the evolving menace posed by cyber aggression” (we apparently need “a re-design of how we wire ourselves in an electronic age,” whatever that means”; and “the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” (speaks for itself).

“The Liberals were in power only for the first half of the past decade but they very much shaped post 9/11 Canada as we now know it,” Chantal Hébert writes in the Toronto Star: They stranded Abousfian Abdelrazik in Sudan; they allowed Maher Arar to be abducted to Syria; they turned a blind eye to child soldier Omar Khadr. Ironically enough, as Hébert says, this tended to embolden conservatives, who, united into a single party, promptly turned around and took a giant bite out of the Liberals’ rear end.

The Post‘s Jonathan Kay argues 9/11 snapped Canadians out of any number of pacifist, anti-American and “honest broker”-type myths, and “transformed Canada into a more serious country, and one that plays a bolder and more helpful role on the world stage.” We agree, and it’s mostly for the good — but we can’t help thinking we arrived at this new attitude as haphazardly as we arrived at the old one. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a long, sober foreign-policy sit-down when we’re neither mortally panicked nor horribly complacent?

In a long essay in the Post, Robert Fulfordargues a similar transformation occurred across the Western world: “We have grown more cautious, more addicted to security and at the same time more militant. Principles once considered firm have proven shaky. … We are much more likely than before to acknowledge that for everyone’s sake the government probably has to do what it does.” On the bright side, we think that latter sentiment is quite rightly fading — not because we’re becoming more naive or complacent, but because we’ve seen the ways in which governments go too far for their own edification, taking people’s support for granted. Frankly, as the debate over reinstating anti-terror provisions shows, we think we’re striking a rather nice balance these days between freedom and security.

Having read Haroon Siddiqui‘s column in the Star, we now at least understand why there’s something controversial (other than the malapropism, that is) about Stephen Harper referring to the threat of “Islamicism.” (Before we’d just been baffled.) Apparently you’re not allowed to even suggest there’s something in or about Islam that’s inspiring terrorists. Rather, you’re to think of Muslim terrorists as terrorists who happen to be Muslim and “who use religious terminology — just as Andrei (sic) Breivik did in Norway. … His terror was no more ‘Christian’ than theirs is ‘Islamic.’ ”

OK, let’s just say that’s true, for the sake of argument. Doesn’t the word “Islamism” — which is what we assume Harper was aiming for — mitigate the supposed offence? Not all Islamists are violent, but then, not all Muslims are Islamists, and Islamism logically breeds terrorism more than moderate Islam. In the unlikely event Pat Robertson flew a plane into the Empire State Building tomorrow, screaming “God is great!” as he went, we’d call him a Christian fundamentalist — or a Christianist, if the term existed. And we don’t think any mainline Christians would have cause to be offended by that.

Duly notedSun Media’s Mark Bonokoski aims some “straight talk” in our direction with regard to an editorial that we mocked two weeks ago. We suggested that it was a bit much to disdain Jack Layton for advocating negotiations with the Taliban in the past when Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay had more recently declared themselves open to much the same.

Bonokoski argues that Harper and MacKay’s idea was conditional on Taliban participants forswearing violence, whereas Layton “wanted to sit down with the determined killers who, to this day, want no piece of peace.” But that’s not entirely true. When Layton first floated the idea in 2006, he too said that a cessation of violence would have to be a precondition. So — was he naive? Was it just store-bought NDP pacifism? Probably. But surely it would still be naive today to trust an individual Taliban’s sworn declaration of non-violence.

The issue is whether the minor differences between Layton’s position and that of the current government — a few years, and Harper’s and MacKay’s reported insistence that Canada itself not negotiate, only the Afghans — justify casting Layton as a Taliban stooge while offering no critique whatsoever of MacKay and Harper. We believe they do not. “Taliban Jack” remains a truly astonishing smear, even by the standards of Canadian politics.

We also took issue with the editorialists’ contention that the word “manifesto” — which Stephen Lewis used (dubiously) to describe Layton’s final letter to Canadians — can only be used to describe “repressive communist [values] where freedom is a forbidden word.”

“We think the modern-day manifesto’s (sic) of the Unabomber and Norway’s Anders Behring Breivik, and ‘Postie’ Selley thinks 19th-century Robert Peel,” Bonokoski scoffs — referring to the Tamworth Manifesto, one of the conservative documents to which we linked. For the record, we also linked to the UK Conservative Party’s most recent manifesto, and to Dick Armey’s recent book Give Us Liberty — A Tea Party Manifesto. But frankly, we’re not sure why we should be limited to modern examples of non-communist manifestos when the Sun Media editorialists are still so hung up about Marx and Engels.

The ultimate conundrumObviously the New Democrats and Liberals should merge, and obviously they cannot.

It’s “blindingly obvious,” says the Ottawa Citizen‘s Susan Riley, that Bob Rae should either quarterback a Liberal-NDP merger or defect back to the NDP and lead them by himself. Only Canadian politics’ “army of cynics, insiders, anonymous sources and academics quick to point out obstacles to any sensible, innovative proposal” stands in the way of this perfectly logical outcome, she argues. OK. The merger thing? Sure, it makes some sense — though Riley makes a stronger case for the Liberals to be interested than for the New Democrats. But Rae going back to the New Democrats would be totally daffy. Surely there’s a certain level of humiliation below which even Canadian politicians can’t function properly.

The “fundamental fallacy” of the mergerists, Andrew Coyne writes in Maclean’s, is “the assumption that the Liberals are, like the NDP, a party of the left; that their differences with the NDP are of degree, rather than of kind.” This is untrue of “many in the party,” he argues, and “even less true among the universe of possible Liberal voters, many of whom think of themselves as centrists, even centre-right.” Those people would be very likely to bleed to the Conservatives, in Coyne’s view, but only if a merger is even possible — which he believes it barely is. To unite the right was really “to put back together a coalition that had already been in existence for 120-odd years,” Coyne observes, and the cost has been rather steep — namely, the abandonment of “virtually everything that either party had ever stood for.”

On the occasion of the release of some unappealing Canadian economic data, the Citizen‘s Dan Gardner crunches some numbers and finds our economy was never as world-beating as Stephen Harper made it out to be during the election campaign. This is nothing new, of course: “Prime ministers exaggerate the good stuff and take credit for it, while blaming everything that goes wrong on forces beyond our borders. Always have. Always will,” says Gardner. Just might’ve been nice if the media had stopped “applauding” for a minute to call b-s.

Oh, jeez. Nothing good ever happens when TheGlobe and Mail‘s Jeffrey Simpson writes a memo, or when he attempts satire. And here we havea satirical memo (not) from Nigel Wright to his boss, Stephen Harper, suggesting ways “to build on our restoration of the British monarchy as a Canadian symbol.” Examples: “Propose the creation of a Commonwealth Expeditionary Force, led by a British general with a Canadian second-in-command, to be deployed wherever former bits of the Empire need help (such as Sudan).” And “create the Kate Middleton Fashion Prize for the best in Canadian haute couture.” Ugh. Dreadful. But hey, at least it wasn’t about Australia.

The freedom-and-security balanceLorne Gunter, writing in the National Post, isn’t willing to consider granting the government greater powers to fight terrorism unless and until it makes a better case for them than, basically, we want them, and we need them to keep you safe, but we’ll probably never use them. “It’s not often I agree with interim Liberal leader Bob Rae,” says Gunter, “but he’s right when he wonders: ‘Is the Prime Minister saying that for the last four or five years we have been at risk, at greater risk, because the measures have not been in place?’ ”

The Post‘s editorialists, however, support reinstating provisions for arrests without warrant and compelling testimony from uncooperative witnesses, on the theory that “good policymakers address threats before they take lives, not after.” (Great. Find us some good policymakers and we’ll talk.)

The Post‘s Scott Stinson notes that amidst all the predictions of socioeconomic doom in the days after 9/11, many people felt the entertainment world had changed forever — no more irony, no more jokes, no more disaster movies. And just like all the predictions of socioeconomic doom, these proved to be purest bunk. Big thanks to Gilbert Gottfried!

And the Post‘s Christie Blatchfordsurveys the public manifestations of New York’s grief, 10 years on, and finds many of them too akin to remembering a natural disaster, rather than a deliberate attack. She suggests Americans’ initial pacifist impulses — no war, no backlash against Muslims, etc. — have “metastasized,” and that “the exclusion of firefighters — and the clergy who so comforted them — at Sunday’s ceremony is the craven evidence.” Maybe. Excluding firefighters is certainly weird, if nothing else. But the official ceremony aside, we’re left wondering what an appropriate manifestation of grief and remembrance would look like. An al-Qaeda attack is not the same thing as an earthquake, obviously, but there’s not much more your average New Yorker can do to prevent it.

National Post
cselley@nationalpost.com

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/chris-selleys-full-pundit-come-back-bob-rae-all-is-forgiven/feed0stdLorne Gunter: In terms of anti-terror laws, we should err on the side of freedomhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/lorne-gunter-in-terms-of-anti-terror-laws-we-should-err-on-the-side-of-freedom
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/lorne-gunter-in-terms-of-anti-terror-laws-we-should-err-on-the-side-of-freedom#commentsFri, 09 Sep 2011 11:56:07 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=50031

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Those words, first written by Benjamin Franklin more than 200 years ago, should be inscribed above the door of every police headquarters and security-service office in the free world as a reminder to those working inside that what they are safeguarding is liberty itself. If they take measures to keep us safe that trample on our rights as law-abiding citizens to have our thoughts, finances and communications kept private from the government, they are damaging the very liberties they are charged with defending.

Franklin’s saying should probably be taught in school, too, since politicians, police and security officers seldom operate in a vacuum. A citizenry clamouring to be kept safe from terrorists is often the push behind actions to protect us that also infringe on our rights. How many times have you heard someone (or said yourself) that no one should care whether the government or police monitor our mail, email, Internet searches or financial transactions; so long as we are doing nothing wrong, we have nothing to hide?

But I care. The attacks of 9/11 did not take away my right as a free person to be free of government surveillance, so long as I have given the government no reason to suspect me of terrorist plotting. I have nothing to hide. My life is an open book. Still, I resent the idea of state agents or government supercomputers poking around in my phone records, my inbox, my bank statements and browsing history for any telltale sign of anti-government conspiracy.

I concede there is a fine balance between government’s obligation to maintain national security and the equally important duty to defend civil liberties. Further, I’ll admit it is a balance that is tough to find, and that Canadian politicians, police and courts have, since Sept. 2001, managed to strike a decent blend — mostly.

But the Tories’ promise to reintroduce anti-terror laws that lapsed in 2007 concerns me. While saying the measures are necessary to keep Canadians secure from international Muslim extremists, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has also attempted to reassure citizens who have civil-liberty concerns by saying the measures will seldom, if ever, be used.

They cannot be both, however. The proposed measures cannot be essential and irrelevant at one and the same time.

The powers are great, as is the potential for their abuse. The renewed provision would give police the authority to arrest suspects — without warrant — and detain them for three days without charges if they fear a terrorist attack is imminent. It would also permit judges to compel witnesses to testify in secret or face indefinite imprisonment, perhaps for months or even years.

It’s not often I agree with interim Liberal leader Bob Rae, but he’s right when he wonders: “Is the prime minister saying that for the last four or five years we have been at risk, at greater risk, because the measures have not been in place? I think he has to answer that question.”

Mr. Rae is utterly wrong, though, when he chastises the PM for singling out Muslim extremism as the principal terror threat against Canada. “You look at the outbursts of extremism around the world, I don’t think that you can limit it to just one religion, or ideology or form of nationalism,” the Liberal leader said.

Oh, right, I forgot about the threat from Congolese tribal extremists and New Zealand South Island nationalists.

Mr. Harper did not say that all Muslims were a threat, just “Islamicists,” which is entirely correct.

At least Mr. Rae was not being naive, like NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar, who insisted the best way to combat the terror threat was to “build a more inclusive society.” Please, we’ve tried the warm, fuzzy, group-hug approach. It’s called multiculturalism and political correctness — and it hasn’t made the world safer.

What has made the world safer since 9/11 has been a greater concentration on pre-attack intelligence and heightened security.

So I am not entirely ruling out the need to reintroduce anti-terror measures. I acknowledge the world is full of very bad and dangerous people who would destroy us if they could.

Rather, I am simply saying that a strong, persuasive case has to be made for curtailing essential liberties, especially when security measures have the potential for trampling core freedoms.

In the bad old days of the Cold War, when Soviet espionage and subversion was rampant, it was a given that in questions of security versus individual rights, preference was given to the state.

In other words, in sensitive areas of national security, if suspicions of treason or of being co-opted by the KGB, couldn’t be proven definitively, the verdict rendered was usually to protect the state. It’s pretty hard to argue with that.

It doesn’t mean that the individual in question is punished or convicted, but it does mean that the person remains a security “risk,” albeit not a security “breach.”

The old Cold War guidelines don’t apply so much any more – and in fact were never very effective at curbing Soviet penetration of Canadian institutions such as the CBC, which always showed more concern about the possibility of CIA activities in Canada than KGB penetration.

That was then, this is now.

With KGB subversion and Soviet expansion no longer a threat, another menace has emerged – international and domestic terrorism.

Right now, two guys with questionable records are suing the Canadian government (for over $20 million each) for allegedly abusing their rights. The usual civil liberties activists seem to be siding with them.

The two are Adil Charkaoui, a Moroccan whom CSIS apparently suspects was an al-Qaida sleeper agent, and Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian who is on a UN no-fly list of al-Qaida types, and who was being held in Sudan until the federal court in 2009 ruled he should be returned to Canada.

The Canadian government (through Immigration Minister Jason Kenney) is outraged to the point of apoplexy over the case.

Leaked transcripts to La Presse in Quebec purport to be an encrypted conversation between the two men in 2000, discussing plans to blow up an Air France passenger plane.

The individuals say it’s a smear, and their lawyer (rightly) feels that the leaked transcript is an attempt (by the UN bureaucracy) to undermine the case against the two guys.

Details remain vague. Immigration Minister Kenney insists that while he can’t discuss security matters, he does acknowledge that Canada’s actions are not based on mere “hunch … not based on innuendo … not based on speculation … (but) are based on very robust intelligence.”

For most of us, that assurance should end the argument. Whatever the truth is, in security matters one has to side with the state.

According to La Presse, the leaked documents indicate that traces of RDX (an ingredient of high-tech explosives) were found in Mr. Abdelrazik’s car.

Adding to the mystery is that in the past, CSIS withdrew its case against Mr. Charkaoui because it did not want to use evidence it considered too sensitive to become public knowledge.

If this is true (and one assumes it is), it is still national security interests versus individual rights. Again, protection against possible terrorism takes precedence.

At the moment these guys are not facing jail, but they and their lawyers evidently feel the Crown is in retreat, and therefore vulnerable to a law suit. Money is now the goal.

The way the justice system works, they may well get a pay day. One hopes not, but stranger things have happened.

National Post

Peter Worthington is the founding editor of the Toronto Sun and a regular contributor to FrumForum.com, where this originally appeared.

Last summer, the Mounties fanned out across Ontario to act on what they felt were credible suspicions that Canadian citizens were involved in a domestic terrorist cell. Three arrests were made, two in Ottawa and one in London, Ont. You might remember these particular arrests because of a very bizarre sidebar to the main story: The man arrested in London had auditioned for a spot on Canadian Idol. That added a small splash of humour to what would otherwise have been a grim story — three Muslim Canadians were allegedly plotting to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against innocent civilians. According to police, the men had begun to stockpile the detonators necessary to set off the bombs. One had allegedly travelled to Pakistan for terror training.

At first blush, this seems like a feather in the cap of the Mounties. The sort of thing they’d be proud of. Three potentially dangerous people taken out of circulation, innocent lives saved, more lessons learned in the continuing struggle of our domestic security agencies to stay ahead of a constantly evolving threat. Not to mention any intelligence the suspects might give up under interrogation. What’s not to like? As it turns out, the RCMP did indeed have one problem with how the whole thing went down — they were mortified that by arresting these alleged would-be murderers during the holiday of Ramadan, they may have offended Canada’s Muslim community.

As reported by Sun Media’s Brian Lilley, the day after the arrests, the RCMP’s community outreach office in Ottawa leaped into action, swiftly organizing a dozen meetings, mosque visits and iftar meals with the local Muslim community, to “neutralize and elevate any issues of concern.” The RCMP’s tone is evident in a snippet of an e-mail sent by Corporal Wayne Russett to organize the first meeting: “To show support to our Muslim brothers and sisters during Ramadan, there will be no food or drink during this most important meeting. This meeting is for one hour only, in order to observe prayer time and the breaking of the fast during Ramadan.”

How pathetic. The Mounties, or any other police or intelligence agency, are tasked with protecting Canadian lives and property from any unlawful act. There is nothing in the law that obligates the police only to arrest suspects at times that they and their families will find culturally sensitive — the idea is self-evidently ludicrous. There is, of course, a need for the police to maintain good relations with all of Canada’s diverse communities, but it is depressing, and no doubt embarrassing to most members of the RCMP, that the force’s response to a disrupted terror plot in our country isn’t to congratulate the officers involved, nor to issue a warning to any other would-be terrorists plotting mayhem in our midst, but is instead to seek forgiveness for a national security operation because some might find the timing offensive.

Canada’s Muslims have worked hard to avoid being stereotyped by the violence committed in their name, but a disclosure such as this risks setting back much of that progress. Now it’s not enough for Muslim Canadians to disavow terrorism. Now they’ll need to stress that they’re OK with the police disrupting attacks as soon as they’re able, cultural observances notwithstanding

And as to the Mounties, they should be congratulated for a job well done and thanked for keeping us safe. But they should also be reminded that nothing does more damage to the public’s confidence in the guardians of law and order than the suspicion that the law might not be enforced equally. Whether it’s treating blockade-building natives with kid gloves or apologizing for daring to arrest a suspected terrorist at an awkward moment, the police must take care to treat all Canadians equally when enforcing the law and protecting our security. And that includes knowing when not to apologize for a job well done.

The Quebec Human Rights Tribunal has done it again. In a decision published December 8, it inserts the tentacles of the state even further into the dealings of private business, ordering aerospace giant Bombardier to pay $319,000 to a pilot it refused to train because the United States Department of Homeland Security had placed him on its “no fly list”. It further ordered Bombardier to cease respecting U.S. security standards when training pilots seeking domestic or non-US licences – despite the fact that failure to do so could lead to the loss of American certification for Bombardier’s training facilities, and potentially jeopardize national security.

The matter dates back to 2004, when a Quebec company offered Javed Latif, a Canadian of Pakistani origin, a contract to pilot Challenger aircraft. Mr. Latif had previously flown fighter jets in the Pakistan and Qatar Air Forces, and commercial planes in Saudi Arabia, including the Challenger. After a hiatus from flying, Mr. Latif, now a Canadian citizen, applied to recertify with Bombardier, the sole training provider for the Challenger.

Mr. Latif’s training would have allowed him to fly both in Canada and the United States. However, the U.S. Alien Flight Students Program enacted after 9/11 empowered U.S. Homeland Security to refuse flight training applications by foreign citizens deemed a threat to American national security. Mr. Latif was judged to constitute such a threat, and Bombardier refused his application.

Mr. Latif then applied for uniquely Canadian certification, but Bombardier denied this as well. At the Tribunal hearing, it presented evidence that U.S. officials had advised it that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) could decertify Bombardier’s training facility for U.S. pilots if it failed to respect the no-fly list.

Mr. Latif filed a discrimination complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission, which brought his case before the Tribunal. He sought over a million dollars in damages for the financial hardship caused by his inability to renew his pilot’s licence. On December 8, the Tribunal awarded him $319,000, including an unprecedented $50,000 in punitive damages.

The reason? The Tribunal found that Bombardier’s reliance on the FAA’s no fly-list was prima facie discriminatory, since the list was based on “racial profiling.” Mme. Justice Michele Rivet found that Mr. Latif was

“a victim of discrimination based on his ethnic and national origin and that his right to the safeguard of his dignity was compromised.”

This, despite Mr. Latif presenting no specific evidence that he had been profiled. Instead, the Tribunal based its decision on the testimony of law professor Reem Anne Bahdi, who described U.S. post- 9/11 security measures as generally riddled with stereotypes about Muslims and persons of Arab origin.

At the hearing, Bombardier official Stephen Gignac testified that he got a call on his Blackberry from the FBI saying not to train Mr. Latif. He further stated that he had a responsibility to Canadians.

“If there’s a threat, in good conscience… it ends there. It’s a business call. It’s a decision. It’s a safety call.”

Not according to the Human Rights Commission. In addition to tossing any reasonable standard of proof out the window, the judge also effectively put the onus on Bombardier to prove the validity of the no-fly edict. She castigated the company for not pursuing Mr. Latif’s case with Transport Canada or Canadian and American intelligence services.

“It was not (Bombardier)’s responsibility to assume, proprio motu, the responsibility of national security.”

It’s worth noting that not every pilot of Muslim origin ends up on the no-fly list: in fact, Bombardier trained over 32 pilots of Muslim or Middle Eastern origin since 9/11, all of whom had to go through the same procedure as Mr. Latif.

In light of all this, was it not reasonable for the company to assume there was some merit to Mr. Latif’s refusal? Wouldn’t it have been unreasonable for Bombardier to ignore the edict – and provoke an international incident by training Mr. Latif? And – God forbid – what if the company had trained him and he had gone on to commit a terrorist act?

If there is anyone Mr. Latif should be suing, it is the U.S. government. If they really did have no reason to place him on their no-fly list, then they should be held accountable for his losses. Of course, such a lawsuit would be long and costly. So instead, he decided go after low-hanging fruit – a company with deep pockets – courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer-funded Human Rights Commission. Let’s hope Bombardier appeals this decision – in the interest of both national security and the rule of law.

It is understandable for the Obama administration to underplay the significance of the WikiLeaks State Department cables. But while it is wise not to go into a public panic, it is delusional to think that this is merely embarrassing gossip and indiscretion. The leaks have done major damage.

First, quite specific damage to our war-fighting capacity. Take just one revelation among hundreds: The Yemeni president and deputy prime minister are quoted as saying that they’re letting the U.S. bomb al-Qaeda in their country, while claiming that the bombing is the government’s doing. Well, that cover is pretty well blown. And given the unpopularity of the San’a government’s tenuous cooperation with us in the war against al-Qaeda, this will undoubtedly limit our freedom of action against its Yemeni branch, identified by the CIA as the most urgent terrorist threat to U.S. security.

Second, we’ve suffered a major blow to our ability to collect information. Talking candidly to a U.S. diplomat can now earn you headlines around the world, reprisals at home, or worse. Success in the war on terror depends on being trusted with other countries’ secrets. Who’s going to trust us now?

Third, this makes us look bad, very bad. But not in the way Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implied in her cringe-inducing apology speech in which she scolded these awful leakers for having done a disservice to “the international community,” and plaintively deplored how this hampers U.S. attempts to bring about a better world.

She sounded like a cross between an exasperated school principal and a Miss America contestant professing world peace to be her fondest wish. The problem is not that the purloined cables exposed U.S. hypocrisy or double-dealing. Good God, that’s the essence of diplomacy. That’s what we do; that’s what everyone does. Hence the famous aphorism that a diplomat is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.

Nothing new here. What is notable, indeed shocking, is the administration’s torpid and passive response to the leaks. What’s appalling is the helplessness of a superpower that not only cannot protect its own secrets but shows the world that if you violate its secrets — massively, wantonly and maliciously — there are no consequences.

Time to show a little steel. To show that such miscreants don’t get to walk away.

At a Monday news conference, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder assured the nation that his people are diligently looking into possible legal action against WikiLeaks. Where has Holder been? The WikiLeaks exposure of Afghan War documents occurred five months ago. Holder is looking now at possible indictments? This is a country where a good prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Months after the first leak, Justice’s thousands of lawyers have yet to prepare charges against Julian Assange and his confederates?

Throw the Espionage Act of 1917 at them. And if that is not adequate, if that law has been too constrained and watered down by subsequent Supreme Court rulings, then why hasn’t the administration prepared new legislation adapted to these kinds of Internet-age violations of U.S. security? It’s not as if we didn’t know more leaks were coming. And that more leaks are coming still.

Think creatively. The WikiLeaks document dump is sabotage, however quaint that term may seem. We are at war — a hot war in Afghanistan where six Americans were killed just this past Monday, and a shadowy world war where enemies from Yemen to Portland, Ore., are planning holy terror. Franklin Roosevelt had German saboteurs tried by military tribunal and shot. Assange has done more damage to the United States than all six of those Germans combined. Putting U.S. secrets on the Internet, a medium of universal dissemination new in human history, requires a reconceptualization of sabotage and espionage — and the laws to punish and prevent them. Where is the Justice Department?

And where are the intelligence agencies on which Washington lavished $80-billion a year? Assange has gone missing. Well, he’s no cave-dwelling jihadi ascetic. Find him. Start with every five-star hotel in England and work your way down.

Want to prevent this from happening again? Let the world see a man who can’t sleep in the same bed on consecutive nights, who fears the long arm of American justice. I’m not advocating that we bring out of retirement the KGB proxy who, on a London street, killed a Bulgarian dissident with a poisoned umbrella tip. But it would be nice if people like Assange were made to worry every time they go out in the rain.

You’re busy. You can’t read everything we publish at Full Comment every day. We don’t like it, but we understand it. That’s why we’re willing to meet you halfway on this. Here are some of the blogs we feel strongly about. You missed your chance to read them the first time around, so here’s your second chance. Don’t thank us. We’re givers. It’s what we do.

Araminta Wordsworth: I, WikiLeak founder Julian Assange, fear nothing! I am armed with the power of the truth, and I shall spread this truth far and wide, leaving no inane diplomatic gossip unreported and no courageous Afghan informant left alive. Mighty nations and greedy financial institutions shall cower before my righteous strength! Oh, wait, the rape thing is still around? And the Americans are talking about nailing me on an espionage charge? Crikey. I’d better lay low for a while and hope no one leaks my location to my own website. The irony alone would be lethal … well, that and the Predator drones Sarah Palin wants to send after me. Read more here.

Matt Gurney: Should Canada have a national security policy? Absolutely. Will it? Unlikely. It would require politicians to admit that the entire world doesn’t revolve around their partisan agendas, and Canadians to accept that national security isn’t just something the big, bad United States has to worry about. We’d rather just sew little maple leaf flags on our backpacks and daydream about Pearson’s Peace Prize. In fact, don’t read this blog. Just think about the Prize. Ahhh…. that’s the stuff. (If you’re stubbornly refusing to think like a good little Canuck, read more here.)

Kelly McParland: Hey, you know that health care thing we were all so worried about? Rising costs, long waiting lists, rumours of bribing doctors to perform basic services? Turns out we’re going to be OK after all. Alberta’s Liberal Party — yeah, I didn’t know they had one, either — has stumbled onto how to fix this once and for all. Health care is saved! Thank you, Tommy Douglas, hallowed by thy name. Oh, and here’s the plan now! Let’s see what we’ve got here … “Step 1: Form a Top-Level Committee.” … Really? Oh, the hell with this. I’ll be in the shed replacing my own hip. Read more here.

Marni Soupcoff: Imagine you bought a $50 ticket to see comedian Steve Martin, and he comes out and doesn’t tell any jokes, but talks about art. OF COURSE you’d want your money back. But I suppose we can’t expect comedians to be funny ALL the time. Fortunately for you, Marni is always on the top of her game. Read more here.

Christopher Hitchens: After the shoe bomber, they started making us take off our footwear. When a terrorist tried to mix liquids, they banned hairspray in our carry-ons. When a guy hid a bomb in his underwear, they finally invented those x-ray glasses I always wanted as a kid. Starting to get the picture? What happens when someone hides explosives in a body cavity? Oops, looks like they’ve already thought of that… Read more here.

John Ivison: The CBC is biased? You don’t say. Canadians think we know more about Americans than they know about us? Shocking! I can’t wait for the day when the Wikileaks people get their hands on some of our diplomatic cables. Maybe we’ll find out that Fox News has a conservative bias and hockey is not all that popular in Phoenix. Read more here.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute has another report out. Paul H. Chapin is the author, and it’s titled To Stand On Guard: A National Security Strategy for Canadians. Everyone should read it, and can do so here. But while there’s a lot to like in the report, there’s a real danger it may be easily overlooked. Canada is, and will remain, an entirely self-absorbed country. Threats to our way of life are so foreign to our way of thinking that when the concept is even suggested, most of us have to blink several times, as if to clear our heads. To sell Canadians on the need for a national security policy, you must first sell them on the bizarre notion that Canada might actually face external risks. Which is not easily done.

It’s not that Mr. Chapin doesn’t appreciate this. Indeed, he tackles Canadians’ naivete head-on, even including it in giant red type in the report: “People with little experience of war or revolution tend to assume the world is basically a peaceful place occasionally disturbed by rogue elements, and they do not think much about their security.” Bingo. We might as well enshrine that in our national cultural identity, right alongside Paul Henderson’s goal and a Tims double-double. For virtually all of its history Canada has been blessed by freedom from revolution, famine and anarchy. We falsely accept our peaceful way of life as being the world’s default position. When we’ve had to fight, we’ve fought well, but with rare exceptions have done it on someone else’s real estate. Telling Canadians they need to plan for a national security emergency would be like telling them they need to plan for a giant asteroid strike. They’ll grant that there is a theoretical risk, sure, but not one that they’ve ever thought much about, or ever will.

We’ve had almost three generations of being able to plausibly convince ourselves that what happens in the outside world doesn’t matter because: 1. It’s far away. 2. We’re not a major target. 3. We have the world’s military superpower, a friendly giant, next door. These advantages have allowed almost the entirety of Canadian civil discourse and partisan debate to coalesce around entirely domestic issues. Even when international affairs do intrude into Canadian domestic politics, its usually only to allow one party to make a partisan point against another. Do we have a concrete plan to advance our agenda in the world? No. Do we freak out if we don’t get a UN Security Council seat? Sure. How do we react? Blame it on the Liberals/Conservatives. And if anyone points out that maybe we’re not as big a player on the international scene as we think, we gasp in collective horror and point to Pearson’s Peace Prize.

Crafting a national security policy would be a great thing for Canada, but goes against the grain of the Canadian character. Overnight, you’d have professional pundits and talking heads attacking our new “American-style” foreign policy. The government in power would be hammered by opposition parties eager to know why it was wasting time on foreign affairs while Joe out in Saskatoon was waiting for his knee replacement surgery. Any country or ethnic group or religion cited as a probable source of a future threat would have its own diaspora in Canada mobilized to turn it into a racial/ethnic/religious discrimination issue. We’ve been at peace so long, and have ourselves so utterly convinced that the entire world likes us, that accepting there are those who stand for things we find abhorrent is hard for us to admit. Simply put, we’re not nearly confident enough in our own beliefs to effectively stand against the opposing beliefs of others. We want to write off everything as the fault of some abstract root cause that we’ll then assign a few bureaucrats and billions of dollars to making go away while congratulating ourselves on being so progressive about it.

You can’t base a security policy on that. Chapin and his colleagues at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute are entirely correct then they say Canada needs one. But they better not hold their breath.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/matt-gurney-canada-cant-base-a-security-plan-on-hoping-the-whole-world-loves-us/feed0stdLester PearsonAir safety at work: ‘I do not want to be here all day touching penises’http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/air-safety-at-work-i-do-not-want-to-be-here-all-day-touching-penises
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/air-safety-at-work-i-do-not-want-to-be-here-all-day-touching-penises#commentsMon, 22 Nov 2010 17:57:44 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=18920

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSQTz1bccL4&w=620&h=379]

Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: As Thanksgiving approaches, Americans gird for a trip to the airport, where strangers can fondle their private parts in the name of security. In the video above, TSA agents force a child to remove his shirt for additional inspection

The U.S. obsession with hygiene is being dragged into the uproar over full-body scanners and pat-downs by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. Worries about transmission of diseases and cancer make being blown up by terrorists seem almost a relief.

Showering daily — and applying a battalion of unguents hyped by the ad business — is viewed as almost a constitutional right, up there with freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. Not to do so is seen as unAmerican. In a New York Times article on daily showering, Catherine Saint Louis dared to suggest that not everyone needed to wash all over every day. It dried out the skin, for one thing, and wasted water and energy.

The response was near-hysterical comment from supporters of the right to the daily wash. The same mania is being brought to bear on the right of airport security workers to gape at scanners exposing the private parts of travellers or — if they refuse — to poke around their body in search of secreted weaponry.

“How often do the TSA agents doing the ‘enhanced pat-downs’ change gloves? And would most cowed flyers who just want to make it through security and advance to their gate ask them to do so? Or would passengers fear that such a request would invite more enhanced scrutiny?
Until lately I viewed the gloves as protection for the TSA workers, but with the raft of stories about changes to TSA security methods … I started wondering about the possibility of screeners passing everything from bedbugs to skin infections from one passenger to another.

Felsenthal cites the experiences of a Michigan woman who was told she was subject to the search because she was wearing a skirt. “The female officer ran her hand up the inside of my leg to my groin.”

In St. Louis, another reports a “don’t touch my junk moment,” adding sexual assault to her concerns:

“[The agent’s] gloved hands touched my breasts … went between them. Then she went into the top of my slacks, inserted her hands between my underwear and my skin … then put her hands up on outside of slacks, and patted my genitals.”

And what about the risk of cancer? Adds Felsenthal,

“in late December 2009, when the full-body scanners became a news story after the so-called underwear bomber’s Christmas Day attempt to blow a hole in the side of an Amsterdam-to-Detroit airplane, I wondered in a post whether, over time, passengers might accumulate enough radiation to cause some cancers.”

Pity the poor TSA agents. Here is a response (understandably anonymous) from one posted by Cory Doctorow on the blog Boing Boing. Interestingly enough, the topic of hygiene crops up again: he complains the passengers are often smelly.

“It is not comfortable to come to work knowing full well that my hands will be feeling another man’s private parts, their butt, their inner thigh. Even worse is having to try and feel inside the flab rolls of obese passengers and we seem to get a lot of obese passengers!”
Do you think I want to go to work and place my hands between women’s legs and touch their breasts for a few hours? For starters, I am attracted to men, not women and if I was attracted to women, it would not be the large number of passengers I handle daily that have a problem understanding what personal hygiene is.
Yesterday a passenger told me to keep my hands off his penis or he’d scream. Is this how a 40-year-old man in business attire acts? He’ll scream? My three-year-old can get away with saying he’ll scream, but a 40-something businessman? I am a professional doing my job, whether I agree with this current policy or not, I am doing my job. I do not want to be here all day touching penises.”

After all this, it’s worth reading beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who skewered American concerns about hygiene decades ago. In his poem, Underwear, he writes: